


The Roses of Thy Mouth

by Miri1984



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:41:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22137973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: They are all the other has left.
Relationships: Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan/Azu
Comments: 5
Kudos: 53





	The Roses of Thy Mouth

Azu thinks the moment it happened, for her, was during the riot.

She spends hours with the Orcish and Goblin elders, laying out options, trying to be the voice of calm reason. It’s not her greatest strength. She knows she can be impatient and reckless, but part of her path is to strengthen those parts of herself in the eyes of her goddess.

She steps out, into the harsh light of Damascus, and she sees Hamid - a spinning blur of colour and light, teeth white against the deep brown of his skin, shirt unbuttoned, hair wild, head thrown back in joyous abandon.

He’s beautiful, and he’s surrounded by chaos, and she catches her breath in equal parts exasperation and revelation.

When he sees her his eyes, if possible, light up even further and her heart flutters in her chest. 

Later, when he curls up asleep against her back on the way back up the mountain, she vows to herself that he will never, ever come to harm.

*

Hamid is no stranger to falling in love. Liliana was the last in a line of girls he liked, then loved, then mourned. When Liliana left him he didn’t know why, couldn’t join the dots between her exasperated sighs and occasional bursts of temper and his own behaviour. 

He is trying. But it’s so hard.

It hurts, when Azu judges him. It hurts when Grizzop does it too, but there is a special hurt in Azu’s eyes, as though she believes he can do better, as though she thought he was someone other than who he is, someone Hamid desperately _wants_ to be, if only so he can see that hurt in her eyes go away.

There had been no hurt in his father’s eyes, when he’d told him to leave. Only disappointment.

He promises himself that he will do better. At least, that’s what he tells himself. 

He is really promising _her._

*

_They don’t have time. It feels strange that they can spend a whole week in each other’s company and feel like it’s too much, and feel like it’s not enough. But they’re being watched, and Azu doesn’t trust Zolf and Hamid doesn’t either and their hands find each other's often in the darkness but it’s not enough._

*

In Cel’s village Hamid curls around the hurt in his chest, that things have changed, that Grizzop and Sasha are _gone_ and that it can’t be just him and Azu against the world because they don’t know enough about the world and he isn’t coping well, he really isn’t. He’s holding on by the skin of his teeth and he feels something sharp and possessive surge in his chest whenever anyone so much as looks at Azu, terrified for her, for them, for everyone. 

He has to protect her. She is all he has left.

*

She finds him sitting with the sail of the boat in his lap, staring into the distance, mouth drawn down in pain. The others are busy, or gone, and Hamid has been isolating himself ever since they started this project. She thinks she knows why. She knows she’s been doing the same. 

He looks up as she approaches and his eyes soften and her heartbeat trips up a notch. He reaches out a hand and she takes it. He’s never been shy of touching her, something else she loves about him, knowing that the physical comfort she aches to give and to receive will not be rebuffed by him. 

“It’s going to be all right,” she says.

Hamid’s smile is too sad, so she raises his hand to her lips and kisses it. It’s instinctive, and perhaps it is too forward, but they’re alone right now, and she has made an oath to her goddess to be true to her heart.

When she looks up again his smile is a little less sad, and she knows that her goddess is pleased.


End file.
